The field of the invention relates generally to displaying information, and more particularly to methods and systems for use in plotting data in a format that graphically shows information about the distribution of the data.
In a facility in which resources are received, processed, and converted by machines into electricity or another product, it is often beneficial to monitor the status of the machines to determine whether they are operating normally. To facilitate such monitoring, in at least some facilities, sensors are positioned adjacent to such machines to measure one or more parameters or characteristics, such as vibrations, temperatures, voltages, or currents associated with the machines. In some environments with multiple machines and multiple sensors, information collected by the sensors is transmitted to a central computer for evaluation by the computer and/or a user of the computer. Additionally, the information may be stored in a database and reviewed on an as-needed basis.
Data stored as described above may relate to a particular type of measurement for a particular machine, over a specified time period. The information may be presented to a user as a plot of the data over the time period. However, the plot does not graphically show how data pertaining to a particular type of measurement for a particular machine is distributed over repetitions of the time period.